A teenager blew herself up near a mosque on Monday night in an apparent suicide attack attempt in Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city, police said.

Police spokesman Magaji Majiya said the girl's target was likely the Umar Ibn Al-Khattab mosque and that she was the only casualty.

The attempted attack bore the hallmarks of the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, which was behind a wave of violence last week that killed 200 people. On Sunday, at least 44 people died in two attacks in the central city of Jos.

Kano has not been attacked since February this year when two suicide bombers struck a bus station killing at least 10 people.

On Monday in Kano, two witnesses said they saw the girl crossing a road before they heard a loud bang.

Boko Haram has been waging an insurgency since 2009 to establish a state in Nigeria's northeast adhering to strict sharia law. Boko Haram took over large swaths of territory last year but have since been repelled from most parts by Nigerian forces with the help of Chad, Niger and Cameroon.